It’s not only the law that says you need to keep your trucks in roadworthy condition, but it is also the safety of your drivers and the general public as well. In order to make this happen, you need to be concerned about preventive maintenance and repair plans.
In this respect, you can be proactive or reactive. You can have and implement a preventive maintenance plan, or you can wait till your trucks breakdown or have an accident and then repair them. The first choice is preventive maintenance.
PM is a schedule of activities that ensure that your vehicles are roadworthy at all times. Like with your family care and knowing when to get the oil change or the AC inspected. It is the same kind of plan, just more comprehensive and more time-consuming. Depending on the size of your fleet you may want an expert dedicated just to preventive maintenance. On the other hand, if you are an owner-operator with one truck, you need to set up a schedule to do it yourself. Either way, it has to get done.
Preventive maintenance will extend the life of your fleet, ensure the safety of your vehicles and save you money in gas, repairs, and downtime. It can also save you from costly litigation if an accident happens and is deemed to be caused by a lack of preventive maintenance. If you are a fleet manager, you should know that you can be held personally liable under certain circumstances if you ignored preventive maintenance.
You need to do all the functions listed above, but you also need a schedule and documentation of what has been done, when and by whom. You need:
• A checklist for the driver to complete daily.
• A checklist of Monthly and Annual PM tasks completed when, where and by whom.
• Trained auto techs to do the work – either inhouse shops or outsourced to a trucking maintenance firm.
• Recordkeeping and documentation of all inspections and all completed maintenance on all your vehicles available to outside inspectors or law enforcement.
What should be included in your scheduled PM sessions? Some things were mentioned briefly but to be comprehensive a 30-day monthly pm should include both inspections and actions.
• Everything on the trucks trailers repair in Tacoma should be inspected from headlights to taillights.
• Check and change if needed engine oil and filter.
• Check and top off transmission fluid; coolant.
• Check the fuel system, cooling system.
• Check transmission and engine mounts; CV joints, driveshafts, hoses, and belts.
• Perform tuneups when needed.
• Check the electrical system and the battery.
• Check the brakes, steering, suspension.
• Check tires and tire inflation; wheels, rim, mirrors, windshield wipers and fluid, horn, seatbelt, and auxiliary systems.
• Check the exhaust system, the frame, and undercarriage for rust.
• Check the headlights, fog lights, trailer lights, and brake light and replace any that are burnt out.
Many of these PM items checked monthly are also checked and documented every day the rig is on the road. It is the responsibility of the driver to take care of this and report any issues found. The areas the driver checks off every day include:
• Body of the cab and the trailer. Check glass, body damage, is it clean?
• Check tires and tire inflation, horn, wipers, steering, and brakes.
• Check how it idles and drives = report any concerns to fleet management.
The driver must be accountable on this and must turn in a checklist for every day they drive. No checklist no pay. You need to train your drivers in this daily maintenance check and hold them accountable for turning them in.
Either the fleet manager, a fleet technician or the general manager must schedule the fleet’s preventive maintenance and maintain the records. You can do all this by hand just be sure you keep all the documentation files. You can also use one of the many scheduling systems on the market for this purpose.
It’s very difficult to do by hand so we recommend a management software system. Buy one you understand. Whether you have 10 trucks or 100 today’s high tech software has something for you both. They are much more efficient and cost-effective in the long run. They offer preformatted reports so you can just plug in and go. No more putting together your own reports and copying them, This software will do it for you.
You can buy fleet management software, custom software or if you only have one or two trucks any kind of scheduling software will work. There is a software program out there that will work for you within the confines of your budget.